Louise Gunning-Schepers, the president of KHMW, welcomed the group of 87 Young Talent Award winners. In three sessions, 20 Graduation Awards and 67 Incentive Awards were awarded, each session starting with an introduction by Ionica Smeets,  professor of science communication at Leiden University.

Graduation award

The KHMW Young Talent Graduation prizes are awarded for exceptional achievements, to students who graduated in the academic year 2022-2023 at a Dutch institution of academic education.

Annemarie Vermeulen, MSc Biology

Master's student Annemarie Vermeulen received the KHMW Young Talent Graduation Award for Biology. She received the first prize (3,000 euros) for her literature thesis 'An Overview of Translational Arrest during Viral Recovery and NLR-mediated Defence in Antiviral Resistance', which was redacted and published in the journal Genes last spring with Frank Takken and Victor A. Sánchez-Camargo. 

With the Graduation Award for Biology, Annemarie is giving her academic career a fitting follow-up; a few years ago she also won the KHMW Incentive Award. From a young age, she loved going out into nature and she found biology a super interesting subject: "It's very diverse, it includes everything, from humans to animals to plants, from small to big." Eventually, Annemarie ended up studying plant pathology (phytopathology). That is the study of how plants' immune systems work, with the aim of developing new crops that are resistant to pathogens. Her thesis is about a special kind of resistance in viruses. Annemarie: "You normally see these little dead spots on your plant, which is because the plant kills its own cells so that a pathogen cannot spread. But here you can't actually see that. In my thesis, I look at the molecular system on how exactly that is achieved, how the plant recognises that virus and shuts it down before it can spread." Very important research, because viruses are one of the biggest threats to agriculture worldwide.

It was not only her supervisors who were wildly enthusiastic about Annemarie, the anonymous reviewers of the international journal "Gene" were also full of praise for her work. With only a few minor points of criticism, the publication of her thesis was accepted quite easily. Annemarie will spend the 3,000 euro prize on a trip to New Zealand, a true Valhalla in terms of biodiversity.

Incentive prize

The KHMW Young Talent Incentive Awards were established to promote interest in studies in the natural sciences, information sciences,  life sciences and engineering. The prizes of €500 are awarded annually in recognition and appreciation of the best study performance in the first year of studying in the relevant fields at a Dutch academic institution.

As many as three-quarters of all 67 nominees, across all fields of study, achieved an average grade of 9 or higher. The KHMW jury was very impressed by the study achievements of the nominees. Several nominees followed a more extensive study programme than the compulsory part alone. For example, they followed a double Bachelor's degree (such as Mathematics & Physics, or Mathematics & Computer science), sometimes with additional subjects, or a special honours programme. Several nominees also contributed to extra activities in their first year, such as informing prospective students.

• Jane van der Pal received an incentive prize for Biology